


a cage of locked ribs

by talia_ae



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Future Fic, Hand Jobs, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:58:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talia_ae/pseuds/talia_ae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an alpha pack on the loose, and in between trying to fight them, Derek Hale keeps falling asleep in Stiles's bed.</p><p>(He’s not bitter, he’s not—if this was the way things were supposed to work out, if werewolves and blood and belief are his birthright he’s going to accept it, but he doesn’t have to like it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a cage of locked ribs

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from a Punch Brothers song.

They never, they shouldn’t, they can’t. 

(They do.)

\- 

Stiles is sixteen.  He has short hair and he can’t sit still and he has been in love with Lydia Martin as long as he knew what it meant to be _in_ love with someone, not just to love them like he loves his mother and his father -- and he always loves his father, but he always manages to disappoint him just the same.  He eats junk food and cares for his Jeep and his best friend and keeps secrets, just like anyone else-- you would think that-- except they’re not like anyone else’s (because Beacon Hills is full of werewolves, and Stiles has helped _light someone on fire_ \--)

Stiles ends up almost dying countless times because at recess when he was six years old, he pulled Scott McCall’s hair and instead of getting mad Scott asked him if he wanted to hunt for frogs.

 -

“I can’t go out for cheeseburgers tonight,” Scott says in the middle of third period.  “Sorry dude, but I have to go over to Allison’s.”

“What, the kind of apology dinner where her dad sharpens an entire set of dinner knives in front of you?”  Stiles covers a yawn, barely, and slumps down on the desk.  _Othello_ can bite him, seriously, fuck Iago’s motivations, he was up all night on some university database he’d sketchily gotten access to researching the goddamn _alpha pack_.  “That’s shitty.  I thought you guys broke up.”

Scott shrugs.  “Yeah, well,” he says.  “It’s a process?”

“Now I’m going to have to get cheeseburgers all on my lonesome,” Stiles says.  “And curly fries.  Because of my pain.”

Scott bumps his shoulder companionably.  “Sorry,” he says again.  “Try to get some sleep tonight; Harris is mad enough at both of us already.”

“That’s my line,” Stiles complains, but he’s in the middle of covering another yawn and yeah, maybe Scott has a point.

“Allison—she’s got a lot going on right now,” Scott says.  He shrugs.  “Like, not that you don’t, but—“

“Seriously, I get it.”  Stiles smiles; more of a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and Scott’s been seeing too many of those recently.  “Don’t worry about it.  It’s not like you didn’t owe me from before.  From all the times before.  And that’s counting from before wolfhood, you know.”

 “I know,” Scott says. 

 -

Derek is in his room when he gets home.

“You could have texted me,” Stiles says, throwing his bag on the bed.  He’s entirely unsurprised.

Derek shrugs, and if Stiles can’t look away, maybe that doesn’t matter right now. 

“It’s safer here,” he says.  “For a relative value of safe.”

“Yeah, fine.” Stiles sits on his bed, heavily, and rubs a little on his shoulder.  Stupid textbooks are heavy.  “You’re going to tell me everything you know about the alpha pack, or none of us are going to be safe.”

“I don’t know that much,” Derek says.  “They’re rare.  The sort of thing you almost chalk up to rumor and myth.”

“Huh,” Stiles says, “I remember when I thought that about werewolves too.”

 -

“You know what the good thing is?”  Stiles is tired, the kind of tired where your eyes close and your limbs slow and the exhaustion is sunk into your bones and Derek, Derek isn’t much better. 

“What is it,” Derek mumbles, voice raspier than normal.  His voice is light—and it’s always unexpected, that lightness, even when he’s nothing but burning, coiled fury—but forcing the words out seems like a struggle, rough from the back of his throat.

“No matter how bad my mental state gets from the supernatural, most of the hunters are way worse off,” Stiles answers.  “I don’t have the crazy eyes.  That is my silver lining, that I don’t have the crazy eyes.”

Derek shrugs and slings an arm over his shoulder.  It’s heavy, but apparently holding someone up in a pool for hours on end means that you can take that kind of liberty?  Or something, he guesses, maybe six hours of research is an even better type of bonding experience than he’d thought.  Although then he and Danny would be bros, trial-by-fire from all those chem lab reports.

“You’re going to fall asleep on while we wait for these files to download, aren’t you,” Stiles says, ending with a jaw-cracking yawn.  Derek doesn’t say anything, and he sighs.  “Yeah, yeah, me too.”

 -

“I like how you keep saying you’re a veterinarian,” Stiles says to Deaton, over a table filled with bubbling files and enough wolfsbane to make anyone’s nose itch, let alone a werewolf. 

“Are you or are you not standing in my animal clinic right now?”  Deaton doesn’t even look up from where he’s carefully measuring out suspicious grey powder.  “I had more faith in your power of observation, Stiles, I really did.”

“You’re the worst Giles,” Stiles grumbles.  Deaton laughs.

“I wouldn’t take advice from Joss Whedon on the supernatural, if I were you,” he says.  “Man got some things right, but he sure got a lot wrong.  Now.  Hand me the graduated cylinders, and do try to pay attention to this part, unless you want to set something on fire.”

 -

Running into Peter Hale at the grocery store is actually the worst thing.

“Stiles,” Peter says, and it’s pleasant, it’s always so pleasant, but with this undercurrent of _remember when you killed me?_ and Stiles will never, ever trust him.  “Fancy running into you here.”

Stiles peers suspiciously into Peter’s shopping cart, but it’s filled with orange juice and eggs and Cheerios.

“Like you didn’t plan this,” he retorts, and Peter laughs.

"My schemes don’t extend that far, believe me.  It would be quite a feat if that were the case.”

“Uh-huh,” Stiles says, and briefly entertains playing bumper carts with Peter’s groceries.  Maybe he could break the eggs.  “Well.  I’m going to go and get vegetables, and you are not going to follow me because this didn’t happen.”

“Two acquaintances running into each other at the only grocery store in town?  Hardly suspicious,” Peter points out.

“You’re supposed to be in a coma,” Stiles feels compelled to say.  “So.”

“But I’m not,” Peter responds, and turns.  “By the by.  Next time you’re mixing up potions with the veterinarian—don’t look at me like that, you reek of spellwork—ask him why it’s you he’s teaching this to, not the Martin girl or the Argent.  Or maybe ask him about your mother.”

Peter swishes his coat dramatically ( _seriously_ , that is so not necessary) and is gone.

The _worst_ , Stiles thinks viciously, and goes to the produce section.

 -

“You knew my mother,” Stiles says, the next time he’s at Deaton’s.  It’s a normal day, Scott working out front, but they’re in the back room doing some kind of protective talisman.  “Didn’t you?”

“We’d met,” Deaton says briefly.  “Make sure you pronounce the Latin correctly here, or you’ll change the meaning.”

Stiles glances at the transcription.  “More than met?  Saw each other in passing, or—?”

“Rachel was—“ Deaton sighs.  “Not a friend, but—useful, on occasion.  On the other hand, her secrets aren’t mine to tell.”

“So why me,” Stiles asks flatly, and hands Deaton a silver spoon.  “Why not Lydia, or Allison, or even Scott?”

“It’s in the blood,” Deaton says, and gestures at the book.  “Read the Latin, please, or this is going to blow up.”

“You’re always distracting me with explosions,” Stiles grumbles, but does as he says.

 -

The next time Derek comes over he falls asleep in Stiles’s bed.  Stiles gives him an hour before he repeatedly pokes him in the ribs.

“Dude,” he says, “nap on your own time, I have homework to do.”

“What,” Derek says crankily, “I was asleep.”

“Go sleep in your own abandoned train car,” Stiles makes a face at him.  “Look, the talismans aren’t going to done until the night before the full moon so you can just—“

“—go back to sleep, I presume,” Derek says, and turns over. 

“Answer a question for me.”  Stiles leans back in his computer chair, hands behind his head.  “Look, did your family—I’m not getting any straight answers from the vet and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna ask my dad, so.  Did your family know my mom?”

“Your mother?”  Derek asks, on a yawn.  “A little.  Not really.  Deaton was friends with my parents, though I wasn’t really aware of it, or even aware of how he helped them.  I think your mother came over with him a few times when he was doing whatever it was he did.”

“He said it was in the blood,” Stiles says, and looks down at his hands.  “I don’t get it.”

“Sometimes things work out a certain way,” Derek says.  “Sometimes they don’t.  Maybe this is one of those things that did.”

“That’s not helpful at all,” Stiles groans, and Derek takes that as his cue to fall back asleep.  Stiles throws a pillow at him.  Derek doesn’t even twitch.

 -

His dad finds out about werewolves on the next full moon, when the alpha pack decides to mark their door in fresh blood and Stiles isn't able to clean it off before he comes home.

“This isn’t vandalism,” Stiles says when his dad brings that up, kids from the high school wanting to poke at the town sheriff, “This isn’t something to take lightly, okay, this isn’t—“

“I got that,” the Sheriff responds, turning and looking at him, crossing his arms.  “If it isn’t what I think it is, then we’re going to have a conversation right now, and you’re going to tell me everything that you haven’t been telling me for a very long time.”

“Dad,” Stiles says desperately, because if this isn’t the time there probably isn’t going to be one, “Dad, was Mom a witch?”

His dad raises an eyebrow, and then the other, and Stiles thinks that maybe he can sink into the ground if he wishes hard enough.  Wishing hard enough—it’s worked before, hasn’t it?

“That wasn’t supposed to be my secret to tell,” his dad says finally, “but your mother isn’t here to tell you herself, and I’m thinking you’re mixed up in whatever she was trying to protect me from, so you’re going to tell me what that is, and then I’ll tell you what I know and maybe the last few months will make a little bit of _sense_.”

Stiles turns to walk inside, and his dad’s hand is on his shoulder, warm and cautionary. 

“The truth, Stiles,” the Sheriff says, “I meant it,” and Stiles nods.

 -

“Werewolves,” Stiles says, when they’re sitting at the kitchen table facing each other, “that’s what it is, that’s what I’ve been keeping from you.   It’s werewolves.  I mean, I’m not a werewolf, I’m still human, but Scott’s a werewolf, and so were all the Hales, and there’s a thing, like a fighting thing, because werewolf hunters are totally a thing that inhabit Beacon Hills and Chris Argent is an even scarier dude that you probably ever thought he was.  Also, I don’t know what I am or how I fit into the whole supernatural tableau, but Deaton told me it’s in the blood and that’s very confusing, so I would like to know if that’s from your side of the family or Mom’s.”  He takes a deep breath and looks up at his dad, who looks calm, relatively, like he’s still parsing the jumble of words his son threw at him. 

“Werewolves,” the Sheriff repeats, “ _really_ , Stiles?”

“I promise I’m telling the truth,” Stiles says, and doesn’t blink.  “Scott, hell, even Derek Hale, one of them could come over and show you if you want.  Scott’s mom will totally back me up too if you want a responsible adult’s opinion.”

“It’s not that I doubt you, exactly,” and his dad scrubs a hand over his face, looking exasperated in the way he does when Stiles gets detention for talking back to Harris or breaks a plate, “it’s just that—well, you _would_.”

“Hey,” Stiles protests.  “It was Scott’s fault for getting the bite.”

“Uh-huh,” his dad says.  “There’s clearly more to talk about here—Derek _Hale_ could come and show me? do I even _want_ to know how much time you’ve been spending with him?—but I should answer your question first.”

Stiles nods.

“Deaton knew your mother before I’d even met her,” his dad says.  His right hand goes to his left, and Stiles watches him absently twist his wedding ring around in clockwise circles.  “I’d thought she was a herbalist, a gardener, something like that at first, and she never told me different.  You say Deaton told you that it was in the blood—that’s your mom’s side of the family, you’re right.  I didn’t—she dropped hints sometimes, and they’d disappear for days and come back bruised in ways I never wanted to think about.”

“So she was a witch,” Stiles confirms.

“It’s more than that,” his dad says.  “She told me only when we knew we weren’t going to have much more time, do you get that?  I knew she had a secret, but I never asked and she never told.  I only knew that your nana scared the _hell_ out of me when we went to their house for the holidays.”

Stiles thinks about his nana and yeah, he gets that, a little bit.  He remembers when he was little, watching her carve the turkey on Thanksgiving, and how she’d handled the knife, so much more viciously than his father or even his grandfather did.

“From what I could get,” his dad says, “she was more than a witch, something to do with nature.  She told me the word for it but I couldn’t make it out.  She said even her power couldn’t protect her from herself, though, that the cancer was eating her up and there were some things you couldn’t reverse.  I wasn’t surprised, exactly, but it hadn’t been my place to know.  Your nana was a lot nicer to me after that, though.”  He pauses.  “And she told me that when the time came, I would need to listen to you, and I would need to believe what you were saying.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, and takes a breath.  “That’s—thank you.  That’s good.”

“So how do you fit in,” his dad says. 

“I believe, and things happen,” Stiles tells him, voice short.  “It’s fucking terrifying.”

“Language,” his father says absently.  “That was what your mother told me too.”  He stands.  “I think we deserve to go out for dinner, and I think I deserve a cheeseburger after the afternoon I’ve had.”

“Vegan cheese?”  Stiles tries, and his dad laughs, shakes his head.

“Don’t even go there, kid.”  He pulls Stiles in for a hug and remarks, offhand, “you know, that rash of animal attacks makes so much more _sense_ now.”

-

 _My dad knows_ , he texts Scott, and his reply is immediate.

_Oh thank god now he won’t be suspicious about us showing up at crime scenes anymore._

Scott’s a good friend, Stiles thinks, and orders him and his dad milkshakes and extra fries.

 -

“Figured it out yet?” Derek asks.  They’re sitting on the back porch on the Hale house, in metal folding chairs Derek got at Target (Stiles still isn’t quite over the thought of Derek shopping at Target yet, but he’ll get there). 

Stiles takes a breath.  “Yeah,” he says.  “It’s the calm before the storm, isn’t it.”

“I was hoping that it was the eye,” Derek responds.  “I don’t think that we’re going to be that lucky.”

“No,” Stiles agrees.

He can sense the glow of talisman, newly active, under Derek’s shirt. 

-

The alpha pack comes for him on a Tuesday.

“I have a math test tomorrow,” Stiles tells the leader, who is bright and terrifying in more leather than even Derek would probably attempt.  “You guys are going to fuck with my GPA and then I won’t get into college, and my dad’s gonna make the disappointed face at me, it’s going to suck.  I disappoint him enough already without getting kidnapped on top of the pile of how much I’m a bad son.”

She smiles lazily at him.  “Shut up,” she says, trailing bright red nails over his face, “or say something useful.  I’m giving you a choice here.  Generous of me, don’t you think?”

“Don’t you think the red nail polish and leather bustier are kind of clichéd by now?” Stiles asks.

“I know who you are,” she says instead.  He’d been prepared to be slapped for that, from the challenging look in her eyes.  “I had a run-in with your mother once.  Lovely woman, Rachel was.  She bruised up so nicely.”

“She didn’t die from anything that you did,” Stiles retorts.  The chains holding him are tight on his wrists, and heavy, buzzing with a kind of power that isn’t electricity, but he can feel the break when it loops, less than a second but enough of an opening.  “And I won’t ever.”

“So cute,” the alpha says.  “You think you can believe hard enough and anything you want will come true.  It takes more than that, or everyone would get what they wished for.”

 _In the blood_ , Stiles thinks, and pulls on whatever’s welling up in the pit of his stomach, _come on_ , and the shackles break open.

The alpha looks surprised, and that’s when Derek kicks down the door.

“So melodramatic,” Stiles tells him, and punches the alpha in the face.

(He’s never been happier to see Chris Argent armed and ready in his life.)

-

Stiles is sixteen and he has blood, bright and red, staining his hands and he says, “how many times do you have to kill someone before it becomes a habit?”

“It’s a war,” Derek tells him. 

It doesn’t make either of them feel better.  It shouldn’t, Stiles thinks, and what scares him—that’s if one day it could.

“It isn’t over,” Stiles says, “and it won’t be for a while,” and that’s when his dad finds him.  He pulls Stiles into his lap, like he’s six all over again, and presses his face into his shoulder and says, “I get why your mother didn’t tell me, this is—you should have to do this, you’re _sixteen_ , thank god you’re alright, we’re going to get you cleaned up and home—“

Derek melts back in the forest.  It’s a good skill to have, Stiles thinks fuzzily, and lets his dad haul him up.

 -

He cuts school the next day.  Fuck the math test.

-

“You shouldn’t be here,” Derek says.  He’s on his porch again.  _Keeping watch_ , Stiles thinks.

“Yeah, well, I am, just like all the times you showed up in my bedroom and refused to leave, so you can just suck up and deal.”

“Right,” Derek says, but he nods his head and the empty seat and Stiles slumps right down.

"They’re coming back,” he says, and Derek inclines his head minutely.  “They’ve got Erica and Boyd, they’re coming back for Isaac, and the rest of us, and you.  And me too. Not just the wolves.”

“Yeah,” Derek says, and the look that passes over his face is—Stiles can’t deal. 

“I fucked up,” Derek says, “don’t tell Scott or anyone, but you know they shouldn’t have been able to get to you.  They shouldn’t have even been able to have gotten to your _door_.”

“Better luck next time,” Stiles says.  He doesn’t know if he means it.  Derek laughs once, harshly.

“Shouldn’t be a next time,” he says.

“There will be,” Stiles bites his lip.  “I’ve had shitty luck for years.”

“Mine’s worse,” Derek says.  He jerks his head, giving in to something that Stiles isn’t sure about.  “You can stay for a while if you want.” 

-

His dad presses a gun into his hands when Stiles comes home, doesn’t even yell at him for skipping school.  It’s one of his old service revolvers, sturdy and reliable. 

“You know how to use this,” his dad says.  “You’re going to take me to Deaton’s and we’re going to get you and me some of those special bullets you told me about, okay?  And the next time anything—god forbid, anything happens—you’re going to take this, and you’re going to shoot the bastards.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, and turns it over in his hands.

“And this,” his dad says, handing him a box.  Stiles opens it, unsure of what to expect.  It’s a silver pendant, a crescent moon.  “It was your mother’s.  I don’t know if it has any, uh, special properties, but I shouldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”  He nods, satisfied if not pleased, and Stiles turns to go.

“Oh,” his dad adds, “and I want to talk to Derek Hale sometime.  Tell him that the next time you cut school to go to his burned-out husk of a house, will you.”

“Yes sir,” Stiles says, making a face, and goes to his room.

-

Derek comes over that night, covered in blood and gore, and his dad’s out working so Stiles feels safe herding him into the shower.  He comes back clean and dripping wet, smelling faintly of soap and bleach, and sits on Stiles’s bed, getting his comforter damp.

Stiles protests, but Derek doesn’t seem to hear him.

“I cleaned up the bloodstains in the tub,” Derek says, one hand loosely clutching the towel around his waist.  Stiles glances at his chest, looks him over, doesn’t even try to hide it.  The wounds he had are healed.  They must have been shallow; inconsequential to a werewolf.  Stiles thinks of bruises that last for weeks and shudders.

“Thanks,” Stiles says.  “If you’re hungry we could get pizza, I guess.”

Derek nods assent. 

“Or you could sit there silently and brood, whatever floats your boat, it’s not like you were _invited_.”  He’s not bitter, he’s not—if this was the way things were supposed to work out, if werewolves and blood and belief are his birthright he’s going to accept it, but he doesn’t have to like it.

Sometimes when he looks at Derek he can smell ash.

Derek says roughly, “you know it’s not like I ever _wanted_ to be fucked up like this,” and Stiles knows this, he does, he’s seen the pictures of Derek in the yearbook and the lacrosse trophies with his name in raised letters, back when nothing had ever happened to him.

“I know that,” he mutters, and maybe his hand twitches a little, but he doesn’t move it from his side.

It would be so easy to go over to him.  He swallows.

“We can’t,” Derek says, catching his eyes and holding them; of course he knows what Stiles is thinking.  “It isn’t—“

“I’m aware of that,” Stiles mutters, “believe me, you’re fucked up enough for both of us, add any more angst to the pile and we’re both done—“

“It isn’t you,” Derek says, “it isn’t the time—“

“Maybe instead of pizza you should go,” Stiles tells him, and Derek gets up silently, gets dressed.  His face settles into something that says _isn’t the time be damned_ , like he’s arguing with himself and the wrong side won, and he kisses Stiles instead of leaving; it might be brief but it’s a kiss all the same.

“ _What_ ,” Stiles says, and “we _can’t._ You just said that yourself. _”_

Derek says, “yeah,”

“It doesn’t mean I wanted you to stop,” Stiles tells him, and yanks him forward by his dirty, blood-stained shirt. 

Derek’s answering laugh is dry, and maybe it doesn’t matter that Stiles has only ever been kissed twice before, because he is _nailing_ this, Derek’s mouth hot against him, Derek’s hands tugging at the hem of his shirt.

“You should take this off,” Stiles murmurs, pulling on Derek’s sleeve, “it’s filthy,” and evidently Derek agrees because he yanks his shirt off in one fluid motion, backs Stiles up against the wall.  They’re roughly the same height now, and he’s never been so glad for that because it isn’t far to look Derek in the eye, to challenge him into another kiss.  Derek’s mouth drags over Stiles’s neck, bites softly at the skin at the corner of his jaw, and Stiles can’t help the shiver.

“It’s not fair that I have to deal with you,” Derek says, “when you have no clue what you do to me, when you come over to my house and refuse to leave—“

“I guess I’m not sorry,” Stiles says thickly, and pushes up against Derek.  He’s hard, been hard since his back hit the wall and Derek is too, a line of heat against his thigh.  “Come on—“

“Unbutton your pants,” Derek demands and Stiles does, hastily, and takes care of Derek’s as well.  It’s dim in his bedroom, the light from the street faint through the window, and they’re both being quieter than they need to be.

Derek’s hand slides over the front of Stiles’s boxers, where he’s straining  at the cotton, and the noise he makes is practically punched out of him.

“This is such a bad idea,” Derek says, his hand dipping inside Stiles’s waistband, and he’s still grinding steadily against Stiles’s hip, “I’m an idiot for even—“

“Shut up, shut _up_ ,” Stiles says, biting down on Derek’s shoulder. 

Derek shudders and moans.

It doesn’t take long before Stiles comes, Derek’s hand down his pants, working him steadily until he chokes on a gasp and his back jerks against the wall, whispering _oh fuck, again, just like that_ into Derek’s mouth, and when he stills, comes back to himself, Derek’s licking come off his hand—holy shit—and almost uncomfortably hard.

“Let me know if I’m doing something wrong,” Stiles says, and sinks down to his knees, takes Derek into his mouth. 

 -

“I think Derek’s lonely,” Scott says during English class the next day. 

Stiles laughs, almost mean, and says, “no shit.”

 -

The alpha pack, or at least some of them, comes to the Argent’s house when Scott is having dinner with Allison and her father.  Stiles is there too, which is new, but apparently they’re all on the same side now.  He guesses that that can be a thing.

“Big mistake,” Chris Argent says, his face going briefly dark and fearsome, and silently, Allison picks up her bow.

Stiles has the gun in his backpack, but he has the feeling it might not be necessary.

“I’m glad your girlfriend has such a terrifying family,” Stiles whispers to Scott, ducking behind the kitchen counter. 

“We’re still broken up,” Scott says, crouched down next to him; from the sounds they can hear it doesn’t seem like they’ll be needed at all, and Stiles sends up a quick thanks for that.  Scott looks entirely too happy when he says Allison is his ex, and Stiles shakes his head.

“They’re getting stupider, if they’re attacking the hunters head-on,” he says instead.  Scott nods.

“If they go for Deaton next,” he starts, worried.

Stiles gnaws on his lower lip.  “I don’t doubt that Deaton can protect himself, but—“

“Bold is different from stupid, right?” Scott suggests and that’s a definite, alarming point.

 -

“You should talk to the Argents,” Stiles says, bursting into Derek’s kitchen.  He trips on a loose floorboard and falls, not at all elegantly, to the ground.  It’s probably one of his better entrances.

“I don’t want to,” Derek scowls, and there’s a beat before he says, “I know.  I will.”

“Isaac hasn’t been in school recently,” Stiles says.  It’s probably not the best moment, but Erica and Boyd have been missing for weeks, taken somewhere—or maybe they ran—and whatever’s left of Derek’s bond with them is more fragile than a strand.  “Like, since Monday, and now it’s Thursday.”

“I know what day it is,” Derek snaps, and rubs a hand across his brow.  “I know.”  He looks uncomfortable, almost, that Stiles is there in his kitchen, like he has something to be sorry for.

Stiles wants to tell him that, he shouldn’t be, but—

“We’re assuming he’s been captured,” Peter says, strolling into the kitchen.  He offers Stiles a hand up off the floor.  Stiles doesn’t take it.

“Go away,” he says instead.  Peter looks mildly offended.

“Just trying to be polite,” he says, “social norms, Miss Manners, I’m sure you know.”

“Seriously, go away, this is me asking nicely.”

“Mmm.”  Peter sits in a chair.  “Not at the moment.”

“You’re an ass,” Stiles says, and lets Derek haul him up.  Derek is warm, radiating heat, and counter-intuitively, Stiles thinks that Peter probably isn’t.

“You need to talk to the Argents,” he tells Derek, again.  “And maybe my dad.  Actually, definitely my dad, he said it like a question but I have been his son long enough to be able to tell when it’s a command.”

“I know,” Derek says, and again, “I do.  Stiles, we—we need a plan.”

-

“What happened before,” Derek says, words curt, “I should have—I should have known better.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Stiles says quietly, but Derek shakes his head.

“Just drive,” he says, and his voice makes Stiles think that it’s meant to be an apology.

 -

Derek comes in through the front door two nights later, streaked with soot.  The Sheriff, sitting in the living room, barely bats an eye when he comes in.

“Need a little help, son?” he asks.  “Paper towels are in the kitchen, if that’s what you’re looking for.  Stiles is too.”

“They’ve got Deaton,” Derek says, “I thought you might want to know.”

“My wife would have,” the Sheriff says, and closes his newspaper.  “I’m fairly sure she would have gone after him.”

“I’m going to,” Derek says, and tries not to fall over.

“You’re going to eat some dinner first,” Stiles’s father says.  “We might have had one talk, you and me, but we’re going to have another over some steak, and then you and my son are going to tell me what your plan is.  From what I know of Doc Deaton, he can take care of himself for a little while.”

Derek nods stiffly and follows him into the kitchen.

-

After dinner, they go up to Stiles’s room.

“Research,” he tells his dad, who looks like he doesn’t entirely believe either of them.  “Really.”

“We only have a couple of hours,” Derek says, once the door is closed and he’s sitting on Stiles’s bed.  “I should—“

“You should sleep for a couple of hours while I call Scott and he calls Mr. Argent,” Stiles says firmly, or at least he’s trying to be firm, but he sits down right next to Derek on the bed and maybe he leans into him a little bit, like it isn’t a big deal.

“Maybe,” Derek says, and places his hands on Stiles’s shoulder, pulling him so that they’re close and facing one another.  Derek kisses him slowly, nothing like he’s ever thought it would be like.  There’s no hint of—of ferocity, of animalism or of anything wild.  It’s aching, heat curling and seeking something, and it hits Stiles straight in the chest like a bullet.

He kisses Derek back for a moment, lets himself have it (doesn’t he deserve it?) and then he frames Derek’s heart with his hands, one next to the other, and putting force behind it, pushes him away.

“We can’t,” Stiles says.  “Remember?  I’m not the one with weak resolve here—I could just—you gotta stick to it, this can’t happen now, okay?  It’s not a both-way street.”

Derek’s lips are parted but his breathing is normal, and Stiles knows that Derek can hear his heartbeat fast and stuttering and all over the place.

“It’s not the time,” Stiles says quietly, a familiar echo.  “I’m sorry,” and goes to his desk to try to make up a plan.

 -

“Derek Hale, huh,” his dad says, and Stiles shakes his head, says, “really, let’s not do this now.”

“Well then,” his dad responds, thoughtful.  “I suppose we should get a move on.”

 -

Scott meets them at the Hale house, trailing Mr. Argent, Allison, and a truly terrifying cadre of hunters in black SUVs.

“Derek,” Mr. Argent says, inclining his head.  It takes him a moment, but Derek nods back.

“Nice night for it,” one of the younger hunters says, crossbow in hand.  Allison’s in black just like all of them, her face set. 

“Don’t forget about me,” Peter says, porch steps creaking a little under his weight.

The Sheriff raises an eyebrow, one hand on his gun, but Derek shakes his head minutely.

 _Not now_ , Stiles thinks.  Peter is for later, once they’ve won the first war.

“Okay,” Scott says, taking a breath; there are four people depending on them—well, they’re still not sure about Deaton, what he’ll do once he’s out of handcuffs, hard to factor into any type of strategy—“if we’re going to do this, we should go now.”

“Well said,” Mr. Argent tells him, and Derek leads the way.

The air smells metallic, like lightening.  Stiles has his mother’s pendant on underneath his shirt and his father’s gun in his belt, what remains of the pack besides him, and he might not be anything else but he is _ready_.

 


End file.
